March 14, 2014: 1:30 PM-2:30 PM, Ketter Hall room 140, University at Buffalo, North Campus

Professor Linda Boyle.

Dr. Wenlong Jin Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Institute of Transportation Studies University of California, Irvine

A control theoretic formulation of green driving strategies based on inter-vehicle communications

In this talk, I will present a control theoretic formulation of distributed, cooperative green driving strategies based on inter-vehicle communications (IVCs) to smooth traffic flow and lower pollutant emissions and fuel consumption in stop-and-go traffic. The control variable is the advisory speed limit, which is designed to smooth a following vehicle’s speed profile without changing its average speed. We theoretically analyze the performance of a constant independent and three simple cooperative green driving strategies and present three rules for effective and robust strategies. We then develop a distributed cooperative green driving strategy, in which the advisory speed limit is first independently calculated by each individual vehicle and then averaged among green driving vehicles through IVC. By simulations with Newell’s car-following model and the Comprehensive Modal Emissions Model (CMEM), we demonstrate that such a strategy is effective and robust independently as well as cooperatively for different market penetration rates of IVC-equipped vehicles and communication delays. In particular, even when 5% of the vehicles implement the green driving strategy and the IVC communication delay is 60 s, the fuel consumption can be reduced by up to 15%. In the end I will also present our latest field test results.